Plenty of Fish Review: Plenty of Attention, Mixed Dating Intentions

Overview

When I first heard about Plenty of Fish years back, I thought it was a cute name, but I didn’t think a sea of potential suitors fit my vibe. I was more of a Hinge girl. Creating a POF profile for this review was eye-opening. In one week, I got 15 messages and well over 100 likes. The dating pool was varied and clearly active. I even upgraded to a paid tier…and found it only marginally better than the free version. If not paying for online dating is a priority for you, Plenty of Fish is a good one to try.

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Plenty of Fish was one of the first of its kind in 2003. It was a free online dating site that didn’t try to push singles to love or lust. It was mostly about chatting and seeing what happened. Fast forward to today, and Plenty of Fish remains one of the most popular dating sites that offer free messaging.

I’ve always thought of Plenty of Fish as just another free dating site. For this review, I wanted to see what else it has to set it apart from all the sites and apps out there. I also wanted to try the paid features to determine if upgrading is worthwhile.

Is Plenty of Fish still worth using? That’s what I’m here to find out.

Creating My POF Profile Step by Step

Given POF’s age, I was pleasantly surprised by how modern the site felt! A little research told me it underwent a makeover in 2022. The pink background and hand-drawn graphics made the site feel fun, fresh, and geared to a younger audience.

It looked like a typical casual dating site, so I was prepared for a bare-bones profile-creation process similar to Tinder’s. 

The actual process felt closer to eharmony and its in-depth personality questionnaire. Creating my profile took me 20 minutes in total. That’s including the moments I paused to ask myself, “Is this information really necessary?”

But I was committed to trusting the process. After all, Plenty of Fish advertises itself as being “a community of singles where you can come exactly as you are.” 

First of all, I was asked for my name, my location, and my gender. After clicking “more options,” I saw a variety of gender-inclusive options.

I was then asked to input my race and to verify my email address. I could put “prefer not to say” for race, but I couldn’t skip it.

The questions toggled back and forth between logistical preferences – age, distance, smoking habits – and deeper preferences (What kind of relationship are you looking for?) so I was getting sign-up whiplash.

I wasn’t used to being asked if I date others who have kids. However, I appreciated how straight-to-the-point the question was.

I put in my occupation (I put “author”) and education level. When asked to put something as personal as my income level, I hesitated. When I tried to skip the question, POF responded with “Please select your income range. Income is a factor in predicting successful relationships.” 

Or is it a factor in predicting how much to charge me for my subscription?! I didn’t like having to put a number here. But on the bright side, that number wouldn’t be visible to other members.

I was also required to input my religion as well as a series of physical qualities: hair color, eye color, height, and body type. I have to say that I dislike any weight or body type questions on dating apps on principle. And I especially resent it when it’s mandatory. I’m medium build, medium height, thank you very much for asking.

Plenty of Fish kept on prying. It wanted to know my personality type, substance use, and whether I owned a vehicle. I was asked if I had kids, if I wanted kids, and if I had pets. 

To my utter shock, I was asked what the marital status of my parents was — a question I have rarely (if ever?!) come across on dating sites. And I’ve joined quite a few. 

Again, I tried to skip the question and was told my answer was critical to the algorithm. My doubts around inputting personal information were overcome by curiosity. Is POF’s algorithm really this detailed? This information wouldn’t show up on my profile, but it would be there as a lurking undercurrent in my matches, apparently.

Next, I was prompted to say how many children my parents had, and where I fell in the birth order. I don’t see how relevant my youngest child status is here, but I just wanted to move on at this point.

In its final questions, POF came back to my dating intentions. It straight-up asked, “What is my intent?” And unfortunately, “writing a review of how well or poorly this site works” was not an option, so I went with “I’m putting in serious effort to find someone” and let it ride.

After completing my profile, POF presented me with “The Pledge” to be real, kind, respectful, and safe. I appreciated that the site took time to outline exactly what kind of online dating community it wanted to create. 

At this point, I thought I’d gotten through all of the steps and hurdled over random background questions and was on my way to the POF dating pool. I was wrong. I was alerted that my account needed to be verified using facial recognition technology.

So I turned on my camera, put my face in the requested circle, and waited to be told if I was a real person or not. Luckily, I was deemed worthy!

Although it added an extra step for me, I ultimately felt safer going into Plenty of Fish knowing that all users had gone through the same verification. There is a reason the site is called Plenty of Fish and not Plenty of Catfish!

What My Local Dating Pool Looked Like

Shortly after joining, I received initial likes that I could see vague hints at in the Interested in Me tab. The profile pictures were blurred because I started with a free membership.

Browsing the “Meet Me” tab in the Chicago area revealed a lot of active profiles. Plenty of fish, indeed.

The profiles had so much information to them. Even with some “prefer not to say” answers thrown in here and there. Plenty of Fish dating profiles included:

Looking at the big picture, I noticed some patterns in who frequented Plenty of Fish, at least in my neck of the woods. Here’s what I noticed in the profiles I saw:

Age Range

There seemed to be an endless number of male users in their late 30s and early 40s. 

I was curious about other ages, so I spent a day browsing the app with my age preferences set much wider, from 25 to 60. I still found an overwhelming number of users to be between 30-45. Only occasionally would I see a younger or older profile.

Distance

I couldn’t see users’ distance from me; I could only see what city they lived in. I had set my location to Chicago, with a distance radius of 20 miles. Most users I swiped through were within Chicago, and a few were in neighboring cities. 

Profile Completeness

Because onboarding requires answering every prompt, profile completion was high across the platform, though depth and effort varied.

Diversity of Users

Plenty of Fish members ranged widely in terms of race, educational background, and dating intentions. If I had to pinpoint some trends, I’d say the profiles I saw tended to be more white and more blue-collar.

Many POF users had a high school degree or some college. Rarely did I see someone who’d completed an advanced degree.

I’d say dating intentions were 50-50. I saw guys across age ranges looking for serious relationships. I also saw many say they wanted casual dating or a hookup. I suspect the app’s free messaging feature is a big draw for casual daters!

The Matching Process & My Results

When I started on POF, I was primarily looking for matches under the “Meet Me” tab. It’s a swiping setup that should feel familiar to anyone who has used Tinder or Hinge. 

I found this feature slightly difficult to use. I could only see the person’s age, city, first photo, and tagline at first glance. To see their complete profile, I had to click on their photo. It’s all too easy to fall into a judgy headspace and start swiping purely on looks. Which, honestly, is true for most dating apps these days.

Similar to Tinder, liking someone’s profile was an invitation for them to match with me. If the attraction was mutual, their profile would show up in my “It’s Mutual” tab. From there, I could message them.

POF’s free messaging feature is its biggest draw. POF users can message anyone by clicking on the “Say Hi” button (it’s right next to the “Like” button) on the profile display. Free members can’t see their likes, but they can read their messages, so this is the main way to connect.

The only limitation is that you can only send 55 unsolicited messages in a day. Needless to say, I had no problem staying under that limit.

I quickly discovered that it was much more fruitful to send messages than likes. After two days of using the app, I had an inbox full of messages. None of them from users I had swiped on!

My Results:

Days Tested	7
Profiles Viewed	120
Likes Sent	30
Messages Sent	21
Replies	15

The men on Plenty of Fish were pretty polite overall. I did get many dull “hi there” messages. Because some guys just can’t help themselves. But I was pleasantly surprised by the few good conversationalists who came my way.

• “I’d say Beagle is one of the best dogs.”
• “I’m also a writer, but probably not the same kind or of the same caliber haha. I write for video games and I used to write articles about games for a website.”
• “Hey whats going on love, my name is robert. I loved the little I saw and want to meet you an̈d shoot my shot lmk if you’d like to meet.”

Something different on Plenty of Fish than the bigger apps I’ve used: A lot of men were asking for a date in the first message. I think because this is a more casual, free space, it attracts people who are hoping for a quick hookup more than a heart-to-heart conversation.

What I Could Do For Free & What I Had to Pay For

When I started testing POF, I was using a free account. I mostly enjoyed it and felt able to message as I wished. But I did encounter a few noticeable roadblocks worth going over.

As a free user, I had access to:

Like I said before, I never reached my daily limit on my First Contacts as a free user. The messaging worked perfectly for my purposes.

I could send likes and messages, and I could view a lot of information on profiles, so I didn’t really feel like I was missing out on anything substantial. If my inbox was empty, I might’ve felt more pressure to upgrade.

Even though POF built its brand as a free dating site, its paid membership tiers that offer some worthwhile perks. The most tempting to me was to view Extended Profiles, which would apparently include coveted information about a person’s birth order, if they have or want children, and whether they’ll date smokers.

Rewinds let you undo a swiping mistake, so if you swiped left or right and want to undo that decision, you can. Incognito Mode means users can’t see your profile until you make the first move.

These plans all automatically renew, so you have to keep an eye on the calendar and remember to cancel to avoid unwanted recurring charges.

To me, more information is more power to make good match decisions. I signed up for Plenty of Fish Prestige.

Plenty of Fish has add-on premium features that I could pay for, mostly as a short-term way to boost my profile’s visibility.

• Boosts: Increase your profile’s visibility for half an hour ($4.99 for 1 boost)
• First Contacts: You can purchase more in bundles. I honestly don’t know why anyone would. Just wait a day, and they’ll reset.
• Super Likes: Sending a Super Like sends a stronger message than a regular like. ($14.99 for 3 Super Likes)

If I’d bought a boost, my profile would have been seen by more users. Maybe I would have gotten more matches in a shorter period of time. But I wasn’t in a rush! I was getting a ton of attention as it was.

My Experience Paying for Plenty of Fish

After testing out Plenty of Fish for free for a week, I decided to see if a paid membership was worthwhile.

The most noticeable premium feature off the bat was that I could see everyone who’d liked my profile in the “Interested in Me” tab. 

This feature alone changed the way I was using POF. Whereas before, I was swiping through and sending messages in the “Meet Me” tab, now I was scrolling through users who had already liked me!

Feature	Worth the Money?	Why or Why Not?
See everyone who likes you	Yes	Instead of sending out messages in the dark in the hopes of a response, I was messaging users who had already liked my profile!
Read receipts	No	Honestly, this didn’t make a difference for me. If someone wants to read my message and not respond, seeing that they read it won’t change anything!
Unlimited first contacts	No	I never ran out of first contacts with a free membership.
Unlimited priority likes	No	This was helpful when I encountered other Premium profiles that I wanted to see that I had liked them. However, I still found myself mainly messaging them.
Messages are seen first by other users	Yes	This made users with full inboxes more likely to respond to my messages.
Showing up above others in “Meet Me”	Unsure	It’s hard to say with this one! Although I’m sure my profile got more visibility when I upgraded, I didn’t necessarily get more messages. If you want to increase your visibility without paying for a membership, I might recommend buying a profile boost instead.

Another feature I liked was that I could filter out the users who liked me by whether they were selfie-verified and how close they were to me. 

My Verdict: Paying for these features might make a slight difference in your experience on POF, especially if you are a straight man and looking for a higher quantity of matches. However, a basic profile gets the job done. 

Pros & Cons

I think the main upside I saw on Plenty of Fish was the thoroughness of the profiles. That came at the cost of a long sign-up process, but the noisy introvert in me really enjoyed how much I could learn about a guy without even talking to him.

And being able to see how long a person’s longest relationship was ended up being really telling. That’s not usually something I’d find out until a first date otherwise.

My biggest complaint would be the number of times I had to tell Plenty of Fish I didn’t want to join Match or Tinder or any of its affiliated apps. The pop-up notification came up pretty much every day I signed in. That was pretty annoying, but not a total dealbreaker for me.

I think something users should know is that people here are looking for everything from casual chats to hookups to marriage. It might take time to find the person who aligns with your interests.

FAQs: Are There Real People on POF?

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In my time browsing POF, I saw no profiles that were obviously fake. Everyone had a completely filled-in profile, and it all seemed on the up and up to me. I didn’t see so much as an AI photo here.

Given the site’s required photo verification, I’d be surprised if any bots or catfishers were on the site.

Is Plenty of Fish Better Than Tinder?

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The experience of dating on POF felt pretty similar to being on Tinder, with the added bonus of free messaging before matching. 

Plenty of Fish had more detailed profiles, but the sign-up took me about twice as long on POF. Tinder gets you on and swiping pretty quickly.

Both POF and Tinder offer quality free memberships. The main difference between the two is that Tinder has a reputation for being a casual hookup app, whereas POF caters to casual and serious daters alike. 

Is Plenty of Fish Really Free?

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In my opinion, yes! Although there are optional paid features, the site functions perfectly well with a free account. 

I would be hesitant to recommend any of POF’s paid features unless a user was really struggling to find matches or get responses to their messages.

My Recommended Plenty of Fish Alternative

Plenty of Fish is a fine option for profile swiping and casual chats, but I wouldn’t say it’s got the most serious dating pool or a lot of helpful matchmaking insights. It’s more a figure-it-out-for-yourself space. If you’re hoping for more intentional dating (still with free messaging), I’d say go with Match instead.

Match has been in the online dating game the longest, and it shows in how clean the interface is and how smart the matches are. And it didn’t force me to disclose my income!

I’ve gone on plenty of dates with good men I met on Match, and I think it’s generally a more serious bunch of relationship seekers who are more likely to ask a thoughtful question about my dog or my hobbies and less likely to throw out a generic compliment.

Final Verdict: Is Plenty of Fish Worth It?

In my time using POF, I never saw a repeat profile, and I thought the interface was easy to navigate. 

I did see plenty of profiles looking for casual relationships, even though I was searching for something more serious. I found myself clicking “X” more than I was liking profiles.

However, I do think Plenty of Fish is worth it for users who are exploring what they want in their dating life and are open to all possibilities. The free profile is enough to meet people, so it’s a pretty low-stakes investment. 

Plus, POF’s mandatory profile completion and verification steps increase the likelihood of authentic connection. If you’ve tried other dating apps to no avail and you’re curious about Plenty of Fish, I say, jump in the pond; the water is fine!